KEL981 December 9, 2016 ©2016 by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. This case was prepared by Professor Mohanbir Sawhney and Pallavi Goodman. Cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 800-545-7685 (or 617-783-7600 outside the United States or Canada) or e-mail [email protected] No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Kellogg Case Publishing. M O H A N B I R S A W H N E Y A N D P A L L A V I G O O D M A N OnePlus: Crossing the Chasm in the Smartphone Market In February 2016, OnePlus co-founders Pete Lau and Carl Pei were considering how the firm could build on its early success to become a mainstream player in the global smartphone market. During the three years it had been operating, OnePlus had grown rapidly in the U.S., European, and Indian markets. Its beautifully designed and aggressively priced phones had been embraced by technology-savvy customers. The company now needed to broaden its appeal to mainstream customers to grow and scale its business. Lau and Pei knew that OnePlus faced a difficult task in finding a way to the mainstream customer’s heart—and wallet. Specifically, they needed to address three challenges facing their company: First, how could OnePlus sustain competitive differentiation as its advantage on price and performance narrowed over time? Second, how could OnePlus “cross the chasm”1 that separated its technology-savvy early adopters from more mainstream customers? Third, how could OnePlus transition from its social-media intensive “guerrilla” marketing strategy to a more mainstream marketing strategy, given its limited financial resources? Forming a growth strategy that met these three challenges would be essential for the continued success of OnePlus in the brutally competitive smartphone market. 1 The metaphor of crossing the chasm comes from Geoffrey Moore’s influential book Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers (New York: HarperBusiness, 1991). Moore argued that there is a chasm between the early adopters of a technology product (the technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the early majority (the pragmatists) because these two groups have very different expectations. To grow beyond early adopters, technology companies need to adapt their product and marketing strategy. For the exclusive use of z. XU, 2020. This document is authorized for use only by zhukun XU in Marketing 3010 taught by Rita Schwisow, University of Utah from Jan 2020 to Jun 2020. 2 O n e P l u s KEL981 K e l l O g g s c h O O l ...

1. KEL981
December 9, 2016
©2016 by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern
University. This case was prepared by Professor
Mohanbir Sawhney and Pallavi Goodman. Cases are developed
solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not
intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or
illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials,
call 800-545-7685 (or 617-783-7600 outside the United
States or Canada) or e-mail [email protected] No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in
any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission
of Kellogg Case Publishing.
M O H A N B I R S A W H N E Y A N D P A L L A V I G O
O D M A N
OnePlus: Crossing the Chasm in
the Smartphone Market
In February 2016, OnePlus co-founders Pete Lau and Carl Pei
were considering how the firm
could build on its early success to become a mainstream player
in the global smartphone market.
During the three years it had been operating, OnePlus had
grown rapidly in the U.S., European,
and Indian markets. Its beautifully designed and aggressively
priced phones had been embraced

2. by technology-savvy customers. The company now needed to
broaden its appeal to mainstream
customers to grow and scale its business.
Lau and Pei knew that OnePlus faced a difficult task in finding
a way to the mainstream
customer’s heart—and wallet. Specifically, they needed to
address three challenges facing their
company: First, how could OnePlus sustain competitive
differentiation as its advantage on price
and performance narrowed over time? Second, how could
OnePlus “cross the chasm”1 that
separated its technology-savvy early adopters from more
mainstream customers? Third, how
could OnePlus transition from its social-media intensive
“guerrilla” marketing strategy to a more
mainstream marketing strategy, given its limited financial
resources? Forming a growth strategy
that met these three challenges would be essential for the
continued success of OnePlus in the
brutally competitive smartphone market.
1 The metaphor of crossing the chasm comes from Geoffrey
Moore’s influential book Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and
Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers (New
York: HarperBusiness, 1991). Moore argued that there is a
chasm between the early adopters of a technology product (the
technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the early
majority (the pragmatists) because these two groups have very
different expectations. To grow beyond early adopters,
technology companies need to adapt their product and marketing
strategy.
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Company Background
OnePlus, based in Shenzhen, China, was founded in December
2013 by Pete Lau and Carl Pei.
Lau had previously worked as vice president at Oppo Mobile,
which shared common investors
with OnePlus. Even though the smartphone market was
crowded, the founders saw an opportunity
for a new entrant. They believed most smartphones had flaws,
including bloatware, cheap plastic
hardware, unattractive designs, and high prices. According to
co-founder Carl Pei, “Available
devices were just not good enough. People are only focused on
adding features, not making good
products.”2
From the outset, the company was clear about its intentions:
making high-end, user-friendly
devices that delivered a better experience at a lower price than
any other device in the market.
According to Lau, “We wanted to produce a phone that has good
build, nice software, and
trustworthy quality—a phone that ‘never settles.’”3 At Oppo,
Lau had been working on a Blu-ray
DVD for the global market but realized it was a niche product.

4. “Smartphones, on the other hand,
were a good entry point, especially with the rapid development
of the Internet and e-commerce. It
was with such an idea and opportunity that we founded
OnePlus.”4
OnePlus launched its first smartphone, called OnePlus One, in
April 2014 and quickly found
success in India, Europe, and the United States. (The OnePlus
One was released in India in
December 2014 exclusively though Amazon.) By October 2014,
the OnePlus One was available in
34 countries worldwide, and the company had recorded revenues
of $300 million.
From the beginning, OnePlus’s approach to the market was
different from that of other
homegrown Chinese smartphone companies. It projected itself
as a multicultural company with a
goal to build a global brand with a global team. OnePlus did not
want to be known as another low-
cost Chinese manufacturer selling to emerging markets. Instead,
it wanted to become known for its
sleek design and high-quality specs, selling directly to
customers worldwide. In sharp contrast to
other Chinese smartphone manufacturers, 85 percent of
OnePlus’s sales came from outside China.
The Global Smartphone Industry in 2015
In the fourth quarter of 2015, sales of smartphones to end users
around the world totaled 403
million units, a 9.7 percent increase over the same period in
2014, according to Gartner. Inc.5 Unit
sales reached 1.4 billion units in 2015, an increase of about 10
percent from 2014 (see Exhibit 1).

5. Sales were expected to remain almost flat in 2016, however,
signaling the maturation of the
worldwide smartphone market. The most influential players in
the market were Apple, Samsung,
and Google. Google’s Android operating system dominated the
smartphone market with 80 percent
market share, while Apple’s iOS captured 17 percent of the
market at the end of 2015.6 Windows
2 Carl Pei, in interview with the authors, February 2016.
3 Pete Lau, in interview with the authors, February 2016.
4 Ibid.
5 “Gartner Says Worldwide Smartphone Sales Grew 9.7% in
Fourth Quarter of 2015,” Solid State Technology,
http://electroiq.com/blog/2016/02/gartner-says-worldwide-
smartphone-sales-grew-9-7-in-fourth-quarter-of-2015
(accessed June 9, 2016).
6 Joe Rossignol, “iOS and Android Capture Combined 98.4%
Share of Smartphone Market,” MacRumors, February 18,
2016, http://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/18/ios-android-
market-share-q4-15-gartner.
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6. K e l l O g g s c h O O l O f M a n a g e M e n t
Phone saw a decline in share, and BlackBerry continued its
global decline. Samsung was the global
volume leader in smartphones but Apple continued to dominate
the premium smartphone market
with its flagship devices, the iPhone 6 and 6S.
Emerging economies saw rapid growth in the market for
affordable smartphones, with volume
growth of 18 percent, compared to 8.2 percent in established
markets. In emerging economies, the
smartphone industry was moving rapidly to e-commerce through
online marketplaces such as
Flipkart and Snapdeal in India, in addition to direct sales by
smartphone manufacturers in China.
With the cooling of the previously explosive Chinese market,
Chinese manufacturers such as
Xiaomi and Huawei were sharpening their focus on international
markets. India had emerged as
the market with the most growth potential, as smartphone
penetration in India was still low, at
about 26 percent, at the end of 2015, compared with 51 percent
in China.7
The smartphone market in 2015 was characterized by the
following trends:
• Bigger screens. Sales of smartphones with big screens (larger
than 5 inches) grew by over
180 percent in 2014 and the trend continued into 2015. The
share of these larger devices
grew from one-third of the global smartphone market to almost
half by the first quarter of
2015.8 This trend was particularly pronounced in the Chinese
market.

7. • The rise of 4G. The rapid decline in the price of 4G
smartphones and the widespread launch
of 4G networks led to the rapid growth of 4G-enabled devices.
This trend was expected to
accelerate in 2016, with the impending launch of Reliance Jio
Infocomm’s nationwide 4G
network in India and similar developments in Indonesia.
• Cheaper handsets. Chinese smartphone manufacturers were
leading the charge for cheaper
handsets. As a way to grab early market share, these
manufacturers lowered the price of
their smartphones without making significant compromises in
performance specifications,
undercutting established brands Apple and Samsung. By mid-
2016, experts predicted, a
good-quality 4G smartphone handset would be available for
¥4,000 (about $60).
OnePlus Product Portfolio
OnePlus One
OnePlus unveiled its first product, the OnePlus One, in April
2014 and released it internationally
in June 2014 (Exhibit 2). The OnePlus One came pre-installed
with a modified version of the Android
operating system called Cyanogen. The phone featured a high-
quality build, a fast processor, an
excellent display, and a very attractive price. Promoted as a
“flagship killer,” it was priced at $299
for the 16GB version and $349 for the 64GB version. Those
prices were significantly lower than
Google’s Nexus 5 and about half of comparable phones, such as
the Samsung Galaxy S6.

8. 7 “Mobile Phone Penetration in Asia-Pacific from 2010 to
2015,” http://www.statista.com/statistics/201256/forecast-of-
mobile-phone-penetration-in-asia-pacific (accessed June 27,
2016).
8 GfK Trends and Forecasting, “Four Key Trends in the Global
Smartphone Market,” September 2015,
http://www.gdsinternational.com/events/ngretail/eu/wp-
content/uploads/sites/28/2015/09/NGR-EU-12-GFK-
Four_key_trends_in_the_global_smartphone_market.pdf.
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The OnePlus One was sold exclusively on the OnePlus website,
marking a departure from the
typical industry practice of selling through wireless carriers.
Further, prospective customers had to
obtain an invitation to purchase the phone. These invites were
distributed through online contests
and referrals from existing OnePlus customers. The invite
system created tremendous buzz—and
some controversy—because customers who wanted to buy the
phone could not simply go online

9. and purchase one. They had to get an invite from someone they
knew, or even buy an invite in the
secondary market, on eBay. OnePlus used the invite system for
two reasons. First, the company
had a limited supply of phones, so the invite system allowed it
to control supply and demand
for the phones. Second, the system created the perception of
exclusivity and fueled publicity for
the fledgling startup with a fantastic phone that was hard to get
your hands on. Some potential
customers and reviewers bitterly complained about the “by-
invitation-only” tactic. Critics called
the system everything from “maddening” and “the best
smartphone you can’t buy”9 to “odd.”10
Wired magazine said it “redefined frustration with an arcane,
invite-based ordering system.”11
OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X
Emboldened by the success of the OnePlus One, the company
introduced its second-
generation smartphone, the OnePlus 2, in July 2015 (Exhibit 3).
The company set expectations
high by continuing its provocative “flagship killer” label. The
phone was priced at $389 (for the
64GB version), almost half the price of rival phones like
Apple’s iPhone 6 and Samsung’s Galaxy
S6. The OnePlus 2 continued its predecessor’s industry-leading
specifications in several aspects,
including design, hardware, battery life, and user interface.
However, it fell short on a few aspects,
including the display resolution and the lack of both NFC (near-
field communication) and quick-
charge capability.
Although the OnePlus 2 was seen as a very capable smartphone,

10. most analysts felt that it
fell short of being a true “flagship killer.” A side-by-side
comparison of the Galaxy S6 with the
OnePlus 2 revealed that although the OnePlus 2 had excellent
performance and was aggressively
priced, the Galaxy S6 had a slimmer form, a better camera, and
more storage, which made its
higher price more palatable. See Exhibit 4 for a comparison of
the OnePlus phones against key
competitors.
Responding to the criticisms leveled against OnePlus’s products
and distribution strategy,
Pei said, “We misjudged what our main market was and went
mainstream too prematurely. We
should have stayed loyal to our core users.”12 Still, he believed
the criticism was unduly harsh. “If
you want to make a great meal, you don’t throw every
ingredient into it. You balance it and curate
it,” he said in response to criticism that the OnePlus 2 lacked an
NFC chip. “We grew the business
quite well despite initial problems, but we need to find the
correct positioning for our phones.”13
9 Brandon Russell, “OnePlus One Review: The Best Smartphone
You Can’t Buy,” TechnoBuffalo, July 18, 2014,
http://www.technobuffalo.com/reviews/oneplus-one-review.
10 Aloysius Low, “OnePlus One Review: A High-End
Smartphone for Android Experts,” CNET, May 27, 2014,
http://www.cnet.com/products/oneplus-one.
11 Brian Barrett, “The OnePlus X Is a Steal—And That’s Why
It’s So Hard to Buy,” Wired, October 30, 2015,
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/oneplus-x.

11. 12 Carl Pei, in interview with the authors, February 2016.
13 Ibid.
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In October 2015, OnePlus launched its third phone, the OnePlus
X (Exhibit 5). The OnePlus
X featured an elegant design and high-quality hardware, but it
sacrificed performance to achieve
the very affordable price of $249. The OnePlus X came with a
smooth glass back that gave it a
sophisticated look reminiscent of the iPhone. The performance
trade-offs came in the form of a
smaller battery, lack of fingerprint sensor (which had been
standard with the OnePlus 2), and
swappable back covers (which allowed users to change the look
of their phones but could damage
the non-removable battery it was supposed to protect). The
OnePlus X also lacked the newer
USB Type-C connector and instead came with the older micro
USB port. The OnePlus X, like the
OnePlus 2, did not feature NFC, a gripe that critics were quick
to remark upon.

12. OnePlus released a stylish variety of back covers for the
OnePlus X, including rosewood,
bamboo, and Kevlar. The phone also came in a limited edition
ceramic-back version priced at €369
(US$413) and sold only in Europe and India. According to
OnePlus, producing the ceramic back
involved a laborious 25-day manufacturing process, the first of
its kind for a smartphone. The
OnePlus X came preloaded with OnePlus’s Oxygen OS built on
the Android Lollipop OS, 16GB
storage, and was powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801
quad-core processor.
As with other phones OnePlus had released, buyers needed an
invite to purchase the phone.
Despite criticism of this system, OnePlus insisted that it was
necessary for it to control costs,
manage inventory, and avoid issues related to oversupply and
surplus phones.
Competitors
After releasing the OnePlus One, the company conducted a
comprehensive customer survey
in January 2015 to understand its competition. This survey
revealed that most OnePlus customers
(84 percent) considered another Android device before
purchasing a OnePlus phone. Their brand
choices were mostly Google Nexus, Samsung, HTC, and LG,
although 16 percent of customers
also expressed interest in the Apple iPhone. Only a small
number of customers were interested in
a device from other Chinese manufacturers, such as Xiaomi (3
percent) and Huawei (1 percent),
which was unsurprising to OnePlus; the Chinese manufacturers
were focused largely on the

13. domestic market, whereas OnePlus customers were mostly non-
Chinese.
Google
Google was a multinational technology company, headquartered
in Mountain View, California.
Google dominated service in search, cloud computing, and
software but also had diversified into
consumer electronic products such as personal computers
(Chromebooks), tablet computers, and
smartphones (Nexus). In the OnePlus survey, 29 percent of
OnePlus’s customers reported that
they considered the Google Nexus 5 phone. However, the Nexus
5 was both more expensive and
less capable than the aggressively priced OnePlus One. The
Nexus 5 ran on the Snapdragon 800
processor, which was less powerful than the Snapdragon 801
that ran the OnePlus One. In addition,
the Nexus 5’s 8MP camera was decidedly inferior to the
OnePlus One’s 13MP camera. All in all, the
OnePlus One was a superior phone to the Nexus 5 on almost
every specification, except perhaps
for the more advanced version of the Android operating system
in the Nexus 5.
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Apple
Apple continued to stand apart from the competition with its
sleekly designed, premium-
priced, and proprietary iPhone products. Its latest flagship
products, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S,
were priced well above competing phones and inspired fierce
loyalty among customers for their
ease of use and excellent user experience. Apple’s obsessive
focus on design, attention to detail,
and outstanding customer service made it the standard bearer in
design and user experience. In
the eyes of OnePlus’s founders, Apple was the smartphone
company to emulate, as they felt Apple
was the only smartphone maker that was truly passionate about
design.14
Samsung
Samsung was a multinational conglomerate with a long history
of manufacturing in
semiconductors, chips, hard drives, and lithium-ion batteries. In
recent years, Samsung had
ventured into the device business and had found great success
with its Galaxy line of smartphones
and tablet computers. Fueled largely by the popularity of these
devices, Samsung had become the
largest manufacturer of mobile phones by volume. Recently,
however, Samsung had stumbled
with its Galaxy S5, which featured a plastic body and poor build
quality. Samsung had regained
some of its lost market share with the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy

15. S6 Edge, its latest generation of
flagship phones that won praise for much improved build
quality, camera performance, and an
all-metal body.
Xiaomi
Xiaomi was a Beijing-based Chinese consumer electronics
company that was founded in
2010. It designed and sold smartphones, mobile apps, and other
consumer electronics products. It
disclosed revenues of $12 billion in 2014. Its flagship phone
was the Mi5, released in February 2016.
Like the OnePlus, the Mi5 offered flagship features at a very
low price. It boasted the Snapdragon
820 processor from Qualcomm, a 16MP camera, a 4MP selfie
cam, and a 3,000 mAh battery. Like
the OnePlus 2, the Mi5 came with a glass back; the 128GB Mi5
Pro came with a ceramic back.
All versions of the Mi5 featured NFC support and a fingerprint
sensor that doubled as the home
button. These features came at low prices of $305 (32GB), $352
(64GB), and $413 (128GB). Xiaomi
was not a core competitor for OnePlus in the United States and
Europe, but it did compete with
OnePlus in India.
Oppo Electronics
Oppo Electronics Corp. was a Chinese manufacturer founded in
2004 whose major products
included Blu-ray players, smartphones, and other electronic
devices, such as headphones and
amplifiers. The company became well-known as the builder of
the world’s thinnest smartphones,
including the Finder and the R5, which was launched in

16. November 2014. It went on to launch the
R7 and the R7 Plus in 2015 and outsold Apple in China during
the third and fourth quarters of that
year. In February 2016, at the Mobile World Congress in
Barcelona, the company showed off its
14 Ibid.
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impressive Super VOOC Flash Charge, quick-charging battery
technology that could fully charge
an empty 2,500 mAh battery in 15 minutes. It was a proprietary
technology that Oppo intended to
put in commercial products in the near future. Like Xiaomi,
Oppo mostly competed with OnePlus
in Asia, not in the United States or Europe.
Huawei
Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications company, was founded
in 1987 by a former engineer as
a manufacturer of phone switches. Like OnePlus, it was based in
Shenzhen. Over the course of two

17. decades, Huawei had become a multinational conglomerate
employing more than 170,000 people
in several countries. It manufactured smartphones, tablet PCs,
and smartwatches, in addition to a
number of other products such as wireless modems and routers,
wireless gateways, set-top boxes,
and video products. In April 2015, Huawei launched two
Android smartphones, the P8 and P8
Max. Huawei also co-developed, with Google, the Nexus 6P,
which was manufactured by Huawei
and marketed by Google. Huawei was at the forefront in the rise
of Chinese smartphone brands in
2015, shipping a total of 100 million units.
OnePlus’s Early Strategy
The OnePlus phones appealed to technology-savvy customers
who loved the company’s
elegant, high-quality products and the edginess of its
promotional tactics. Customers were willing
to overlook the limited availability and eccentric marketing for
the beauty of the hardware and the
inspiring slogan of “Never Settle.” OnePlus believed it could
build a global brand by relying on
customers to serve as brand advocates. What set the company
apart was its determination to place
customers at the center of its decisions and activities, from
product design to product marketing. As
Lau said, “What’s most important to us is our customers—it is
customers’ comments, and listening
to them, making the phone easier to use and improving
ourselves through customer interaction.”15
OnePlus aimed to stand out in a crowd of smartphones by
branding itself as a user-focused
company. Lau and Pei told staff that they wanted users to grow

18. with them, to share experiences
and to be a part of the company. The company adopted the
slogan “We create together,” and with
it found a way into the global customer’s heart. Even though it
was based in Shenzhen, OnePlus
clearly wanted to build an international brand. With employees
from 19 different countries, the
company prided itself on its “open culture” and the desire not to
be labeled by any specific country.
The company relied heavily on social media to generate
awareness and to drive demand. The
company’s social media strategy focused on Facebook, Twitter,
and Reddit, all of which redirected
traffic to OnePlus’s website. Traffic directed from OnePlus’s
social media handily surpassed that
of its nearest competitors. The social media activity resulted in
the OnePlus website receiving
25.6 million16 visits in December 2014 from a worldwide
audience, just a year after the website
was launched. OnePlus followed up the social media marketing
with an advertising campaign
15 David Rowan, “OnePlus CEO: How To Take an Invite-Only
Chinese Brand Global,” Wired, August 2015,
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/one-plus-ceo-interview-pete-lau.
16 Ariel Rosenstein, “How the OnePlus’ Marketing Strategy
Made It the Most Desirable Phone in the World,” The Next
Web, March 17, 2015, http://thenextweb.com/market-
intelligence/2015/03/17/how-oneplus-ones-marketing-made-it-
the-most-desirable-phone-in-the-world.
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that poked fun at its competitors (Exhibit 6). Tech-oriented sites
also helped sustain the buzz by
directing their audience to the company’s website. By 2016,
OnePlus’s online community had more
than 828,000 members who had posted more than 14 million
messages since the community was
formed.
OnePlus employed some unconventional tactics to garner
awareness. For example, it followed
up its bold statements about the OnePlus One being a flagship
killer with a provocative first
campaign called “Smash the Past” in which fans were asked to
destroy their smartphones from
competitors for a chance to win the OnePlus One phone.
OnePlus was looking to give away
100 phones for $1 each but reportedly received 140,000 entries
within a week.17 The campaign was
controversial but OnePlus came away having generated the
desired publicity with the campaign
drawing attention from fans and critics alike.
Another controversial campaign, dubbed “Ladies First,” also
drew negative reaction. Women
were asked to draw the OnePlus logo on their bodies and submit

20. pictures online. Pei told Advertising
Age magazine in an interview that the campaign was originally
envisioned as a way to get more
women involved in tech but backfired. Many fans called it
“degrading” and OnePlus pulled it
within four hours of its launch.18
OnePlus ran contests and giveaways for which the prize was an
invitation to purchase the
OnePlus One phone. In the spring of 2014, the company ran
three consecutive giveaways within
12 days. The giveaways attracted more than one million entries,
more than 40,000 new Facebook
fans and Twitter followers, more than 400,000 unique website
visits, and 31,000 forum comments.
For the OnePlus 2, the company hosted pop-up stands in nine
cities globally to display the
phones; the New York pop-up drew a queue of several hundred
people, a phenomenon usually
reserved for Apple product launches. By the time the company
neared the launch of the OnePlus 2,
customer anticipation had reached a fever pitch. Some 1.6
million people had requested invites
to buy the phone. By October 2015, that number had grown to 5
million sign-ups.19 At an event
in New York’s Times Square prior to the phone’s launch, 600
people queued up just to catch a
glimpse of the phone. Normally, such fervor was reserved for an
Apple launch, not for a small
startup from China that had only launched one other device in
its history.
Growth and Scaling—Strategic Challenges
OnePlus knew that the “flagship killer” positioning was not
sustainable because it would be

21. difficult to keep creating breakthrough product features. So the
company had to think hard about
possible ways in which it could create sustainable
differentiation. Further, the company needed
to broaden its appeal and reach more customers. Pei noted, “We
are trying to reach a broader
audience, maybe not the mass market, but maybe people who
care more about the design of a
product.”20
17 Angela Doland, “OnePlus: The Startup That Actually
Convinced People To Smash Their iPhones,” Advertising Age,
August 10, 2015, http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/oneplus-
convinced-people-smash-iphones/299875.
18 Ibid.
19 Rob Triggs, “OnePlus 2 Reservation List To Close As Invites
Ramp Up,” Android Authority, October 16, 2015,
http://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-2-reservation-list-to-
shut-down-649567.
20 Barrett, “The OnePlus X Is a Steal.”
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22. K e l l O g g s c h O O l O f M a n a g e M e n t
The strategic approach to broaden the market opportunity for
OnePlus would require
addressing three questions:
1. What customer segments should OnePlus address beyond its
current customer base?
2. How should OnePlus adapt its value proposition and
positioning strategy to appeal to the
broader market?
3. How should the company go to market in terms of
distribution and marketing
communication?
Target Audience and Persona
In its early days, OnePlus’s core target was technology
enthusiasts from two age groups:
customers ages 14 to 25 years (teenage to early adults) and
those ages 26 to 35 years (adults). The
first group used the phone to socialize with friends, listen to
music, and engage in social media
activities (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). The second group
comprised the larger portion of
OnePlus’s target market and had a greater ability to buy the
phone and maximize its potential. This
group of customers used the phone for everyday activities such
as phone calls, Internet access, GPS,
and photography and video. In a survey conducted by OnePlus
in 2015, half of the respondents said
they purchased the OnePlus One because of its impressive
features (see Exhibit 7). Other factors
influencing their decision were an attractive price (33 percent)

23. and design (6 percent). Accessories
were not drawing customers in, though; more than half (58
percent) did not purchase any from
the OnePlus website. OnePlus users felt that the brand stood for
quality and excitement and an
innovative and impactful spirit but that it fell somewhat short of
being trustworthy, transparent,
and customer-centric.
OnePlus’s customer research revealed that the majority of its
customers were male (90 percent)
and highly educated, with 76 percent holding a college degree
or higher. They had grown up
around computers, smartphones, and the Internet and were
mostly interested in technology,
movies and TV, music, and gaming. They were regular online
shoppers, with 87 percent making an
online purchase at least monthly. Most of them were students or
worked in white-collar positions
in business, engineering, or technology/science/math-related
fields and enjoyed talking about and
playing with new hardware. Significantly, they read about
phones all the time, not just when it was
time to get a new one, and were picky about what they wanted.
They had a good understanding
of smartphone features, gathered from sites such as Android
Authority, Gizmodo, The Verge, and
Reddit. They wanted the latest technology and good service, but
were price sensitive and compared
vendors before making their purchase decisions. They were
willing to sacrifice elegant design in
favor of better specifications (e.g., thicker/bigger phone for
bigger battery and protruding camera
for better photos). However, even though they read many
technology blogs and online magazines,
they didn’t always understand true engineering. Their

24. perceptions were deeply influenced by
expert opinions and reviews.
OnePlus now faced the task of identifying adjacent customer
segments that would find its
smartphones attractive and would allow it to broaden its appeal.
The company believed that
traditional methods of segmenting customers by demographics
(age, gender, region, etc.) were
outdated. Rather, it felt that customers should be segmented by
behaviors and motivations.
OnePlus believed that its ideal customer persona was someone
who preferred substance over
glitzy features and who aspired for a better life. This persona
also wanted to break free from the
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shackles of tradition and to pursue a more authentic lifestyle
that had less to do with outward
looks and more to do with inner substance and beauty.
To understand the target personas better, OnePlus surveyed
2,000 smartphone customers from

25. the United States. This survey yielded five customer personas
that could be potential targets for
OnePlus. To validate each persona, OnePlus followed up the
quantitative survey with in-depth
interviews. The resulting persona profiles are as follows:
Joe, the Tech Enthusiast
Joe is a young professional in his late twenties who graduated
five years ago. He is genuinely
inspired by technology and typically embraced it earlier than his
peers. Always the first one in his
social group with the latest smartphone, he sees his smartphone
as an expression of his personality
as well as a reflection of his hyper-connected, always-on
lifestyle. Joe is socially forward, active
on social media, and reads technology newsletters and blogs
such as Gizmodo, Reddit, and The
Verge. He is a fan of FriendFeed but considers Facebook and
Twitter relics of the past. He is always
searching for the latest and greatest Android device and would
consider purchasing one. He is
proud of not being an Apple “fan boy” because he feels the
Android ecosystem provides more
innovation and better value. He cares less about a sleek design
and more about getting the right
specs, such as more battery power and high-quality
photographs. Early tech adopters like Joe
comprised about 15 percent of the market, and they were willing
to pay up to $700 for a new phone.
Amy, the Design Enthusiast
Amy is a young woman in her late twenties with a passion for
creativity. She works in
publishing and is willing to pay for premium products. Amy is

26. not geeky, but she appreciates
beautiful design and ease of use when it comes to technology.
She is a lover of all things Apple and
considers her iPhone and iPad her most treasured technology
possessions. She not only prefers
visually appealing design but also a highly intuitive phone. To
her, it’s important that it works, that
using it is an easy experience, and that it is visually stunning.
She does not really care about the
processor, nor does she want to invest much time learning how
to use the phone and maximizing
its functionality. For her, a phone is a status symbol, reflective
of her simple but classy taste and
passion for aesthetics. Amy enjoys an active lifestyle and
exercises regularly. She is active on social
media and enjoys staying in touch with friends on Facebook.
She awaits the release of Apple
products with bated breath. Design enthusiasts like Amy
constituted 15 percent of the market, and
their average willingness to pay for a new smartphone was
$600.21
Andy, the Business Professional
Andy is a 40-year-old business executive who works for a
Fortune 500 insurance company.
For him, a smartphone is a business productivity tool. He uses
the phone primarily for getting
work done: managing e-mail, staying in contact with business
associates and clients, and being
productive on the move. He likes devices that are well
constructed and secure. He is not excited
by apps and games because he considers it a waste of time to
watch videos and play games on
his phone. He is present on social networks but is not obsessed
with always being connected

27. 21 When carrier subsidies were taken into account, the cost of
an iPhone dropped to $200.
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to his Facebook or Instagram feed. He is partial to professional
networks such as LinkedIn and
likes reading articles posted by the people he follows on
LinkedIn Pulse. Andy prefers Microsoft
products and owns a Microsoft Surface tablet that he uses for
work and travel. He can afford
the top-of-the-line smartphone but isn’t the first one to stand in
line for the latest phones. He
doesn’t often use media applications such as YouTube, but he
occasionally uses Skype and WebEx
mobile apps. Andy does not read tech blogs but instead prefers
business publications such as the
Wall Street Journal and other industry-specific journals and
magazines. He occasionally goes to
the movies and exercises when he has the time. Business
professionals like Andy constituted 30
percent of the market, and they were willing to pay $550 for a
new phone.

28. Anya, the Social Teenager
Anya is a precocious 16-year-old. She is a “digital native,”
meaning she has grown up around
technology. She doesn’t pay for any of her devices (phones or
computers) because her parents
purchase them. As befitting a teenager of the digital age, mobile
phones, Internet, television,
movies, music, and videos play a dominant role in her life.
Social networks are important;
Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, and Vine are her media of
choice. She likes to read but often is
distracted by other media choices such as Instagram and
Facebook. She spends up to six hours a
day consuming media. She frequently uses social media or
watches TV or listens to music while
doing her homework. Anya isn’t yet aware of e-mail
applications or of what productivity is.
She quickly becomes bored with her mobile phone and wants
her parents to purchase the latest
smartphone that she can show off to her friends. Teenagers like
Anya represented 20 percent of
the market, and their willingness to pay for a new phone was
$400, which was what their parents
were willing to spend.
Bill, the Baby Boomer
Bill is a 60-year-old late-career executive who is getting close
to retirement. Bill is bewildered
by all the newfangled smartphones and doesn’t see why the
younger generation is so obsessed
with them. He uses his phone for basic functions such as making
phone calls—the way phones
were intended to be used! Like other older parents and

29. grandparents, he is not interested in using
his phone to watch movies or videos or to play games.
Technology doesn’t excite him; in fact,
phrases like “technology” and “innovation” intimidate him. He
wants to use the phone for simple
tasks such as calling his family and friends and occasionally
sending a text message. He typically
uses the same phone for at least three years and considers it a
hassle to purchase a new one. Bill
does not care for apps and yearns for the old days of simple
keyboards and feature phones. He
tends to think of modern phones and their functionality as
distractions from his basic needs. Bill
spends a lot of time watching TV and reading magazines about
golf and hunting—his two passions
in life. He likes to read more about news and entertainment than
about technology. The only social
network he uses is Facebook. Baby Boomers like Bill
represented 20 percent of the market, and
their willingness to pay for a new smartphone was $400.
See Exhibit 8 for more details and data on the target personas
and Exhibit 9 for an example of
a persona profile.
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Value Proposition and Positioning
Once OnePlus selected its target customer segments, it would
also need to define a value
proposition that would appeal to these customers without
alienating its current customer base.
After much discussion and analysis, the company identified
three possible directions in which to
elaborate on its slogan of “Never Settle,” either focusing on
performance, design, or total customer
experience.
Performance
The most important smartphone features valued by OnePlus
customers were battery life,
durability, value for money, storage space, and design (see
Exhibit 10). One possibility was to
continue the “flagship killer” positioning by innovating on
cutting-edge features and offering a
compelling price point. In this approach, the company could
sustain differentiation by creating
a few “golden features” in each version of the OnePlus phone to
keep people excited. Apple had
successfully leveraged this strategy and engineered “just
enough” innovation on its phones to build
a much-loved brand that kept people excited and coming back.
OnePlus potentially could replicate
this strategy for its own devices. In this strategy, “Never Settle”
equaled feature/performance
innovation and represented the status quo. The OnePlus 2 was a
step in this direction, as it
continued to offer industry-leading performance at a compelling

31. price point. This approach would
be consistent with the heritage of OnePlus and its challenge of
“Never Settling” for incremental
innovation.
The challenge with the performance-based positioning was that
it was an arms race that
would be difficult to sustain, particularly given the fact that
OnePlus would not be commanding
premium prices for its phones. Even Apple and Samsung were
finding it difficult to keep coming
up with breakthrough features, as all leading smartphones
already were extremely technologically
advanced. OnePlus had already seen its feature advantage
relative to competition shrink with the
OnePlus 2, leading to a less-than-enthusiastic reception for the
second version of its flagship phone.
Design
An alternative approach would be to make OnePlus the “Apple
of the Android universe”
by focusing on design and craftsmanship. This was a direction
that OnePlus had followed with
the OnePlus X, for which it had shifted its emphasis from
performance to design as a vector of
differentiation. Apple didn’t always lead with the latest and
greatest features but continued to
innovate on design to capture the consumer’s attention. OnePlus
borrowed heavily from Apple’s
design playbook and mentioned on its website that it went
through hundreds of iterations before
“finalizing the design that perfected a balance of look and feel .
. . creating a seamless, fluid
experience.”22 Lau said:

32. For example, the screen of OnePlus One was lifted just above
the chamfered edge, creating
an illusion that the screen was floating on the top. It was
beautiful, but I knew that it was
just a tiny bit too high and I didn’t like how it looked. We
decided to lower the screen by
just 0.1 mm. [It was a] small yet difficult change and the
customers can barely feel the
22 OnePlus 2, https://oneplus.net/global/2/design (accessed
June 10, 2016).
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difference. But I still didn’t like it. I wasn’t happy about it until
it was lowered to 0.05
mm. Sometimes it’s just the difference of less than a millimeter
that creates the perfect
curvature. We always pay attention to the details that no one
else cares about and put great
effort into it. But it is exactly these details which are easily
neglected that leaves a good
impression and reminds [consumers] of you.23

33. The design-driven positioning would allow OnePlus to move the
conversation away from pure
features and functionality to a subtler emphasis on design and
aesthetics. This would be easier to
sustain because design innovation could take many more
directions than pure performance, and it
could also be extended beyond phones to accessories and
lifestyle products. This approach would
also be consistent with the culture of OnePlus and with Pete
Lau’s passion for superb products. But
the challenge with this approach was that OnePlus lacked the
brand image that Apple and even
Samsung had been able to create. Building a brand that stood
for design excellence would take
time and would be expensive. Pei and Lau realized that design-
focused companies such as Bose,
Apple, BMW, and Bang & Olufsen had taken many years to
build their reputations. Did OnePlus
have the time and the resources to compete on design?
Total Customer Experience
A third approach for OnePlus could be to broaden the meaning
of “Never Settle” beyond
the device to the entire customer experience. Lau was emphatic
that the essence of OnePlus was
always going to be about providing good products. He noted,
“We will maintain our ‘Never
Settle’ fundamentals, as we believe that the product speaks
louder than words. You think about
what consumers need first, then you think about how much the
product is worth.”24 But OnePlus
could expand the “Never Settle” slogan to stand for innovation
on various dimensions of the
customer experience: design, features, accessories, price,
customer service and support, marketing

34. approach, or community. In this approach, the meaning of
“Never Settle” would become more
of an overarching idea of innovation, not unlike the brand image
of Sony in the 1980s. If OnePlus
was able to say credibly that it offered the best total experience
to its customers, it could become a
powerful and sustainable differentiator.
But OnePlus needed to tread carefully if it chose this
positioning approach. Given the exclusive
reliance on online sales, OnePlus’s experience in customer
service and product demonstration
lagged well behind that of leading competitors. OnePlus forums
were rife with complaints about
the tardiness of OnePlus’s responses and solutions to customer
problems. Customer service, which
was based in China, used a ticket system to address customer
complaints. Unfortunately, the
system was not seamless nor very responsive. Customers
complained that their grievances had
not been addressed for weeks and that even when they were, the
problems were not resolved to the
customers’ satisfaction. Many customers were bitter about the
experience and vowed they would
not buy another OnePlus phone until OnePlus had radically
ramped up the quality of its customer
support. Tech enthusiasts were willing to overlook the
customer-support issues as inevitable
“teething problems” associated with a startup. But mainstream
customers would be less willing to
accommodate the lack of quality customer service. OnePlus
could not expect to be the product of
choice for the average consumer without beefing up its
customer support.
23 Pete Lau, in interview with the authors, February 2016.

35. 24 Ibid.
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Marketing Strategy for Mainstream Customers
OnePlus also needed to retool its marketing communication and
channel strategy as it shifted
its focus beyond early adopters. In the beginning, the company
had relied almost exclusively on
news features, online publications, and social media to promote
its products, and it had only sold
its phones directly to customers on the Internet. This marketing
communication and distribution
approach had served it well with early adopters, but it would
not be enough to reach mainstream
customers.
Pei wondered about the marketing communication mix that
would allow OnePlus to reach
mainstream customers. Could the company afford to
communicate only via social media? Or
would it need to make a concession to the “old” way of
communicating and advertise on TV and

36. in print? If it did, how should it allocate resources across the
different media channels? How could
it take a “guerrilla” approach to mainstream media? Pei
declared that “the U.S. will be a very
important market for us this year” and that OnePlus was
considering raising awareness by using
more traditional marketing strategies to promote its
smartphones. “So far,” he admitted, “we’ve
only been good at digital and social media.”25 Pei said he
realized the United States was a different
market, one in which most consumers did not know they could
purchase a phone online and
unlocked. He said customers typically looked for cultural cues
and wondered if a splashy Super
Bowl ad would be a good tactic. But would his core early-
majority customers accuse him of selling
out and bowing to the pressure of adopting a traditional
marketing approach?
OnePlus also needed to think about new distribution channels.
Although e-commerce would
remain the core of its channel strategy, it would need to broaden
its distribution channels. The
United States was a service provider–driven market, with a
large proportion of smartphone
purchases being made through service providers such as AT&T
and Verizon. Did that mean
OnePlus would need to partner with these providers to broaden
its access to customers? Would
it be better off trying to get into offline retail stores such as
Best Buy or online retailers such as
Amazon? Electronics and specialty retailers formed the core
distribution channel and accounted
for 65 percent of mobile sales in 2015.26 Could OnePlus create
its own pop-up stores in malls and
other high-traffic spots? Customer accessibility was a problem

37. even in the e-commerce space; the
majority of online sales went through established retailers such
as Amazon, which accounted for
nearly half of all online mobile sales. OnePlus’s reach through
its own site was only about 10 to 15
percent, leaving as much as 80 percent of the market
unaddressed.
Distribution Channels
To reach this large unaddressed market, OnePlus was
considering several alternatives for
distribution channels.
Online Retailers
In India, OnePlus had expanded its reach through a strategic
partnership with Amazon
India. It could employ the same strategy in the United States.
Instead of going to market through
25 Carl Pei, in interview with the authors, February 2016.
26 Karissa Chua, “OnePlus Transitions Away from Hunger
Marketing,” Euromonitor International, December 13, 2015,
http://blog.euromonitor.com/2015/12/oneplus-transitions-away-
from-hunger-marketing.html.
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retailers, OnePlus potentially could strike an exclusive deal
with Amazon to sell and distribute its
phones and thereby increase the addressable market. Under this
option, its online strategy would
be purely through Amazon and OnePlus’s own website. This
strategy would be consistent with
OnePlus’s heritage, and there would be no headaches and costs
related to physical distribution
because Amazon would carry the load. The disadvantage was
that OnePlus’s bargaining power
would be limited by Amazon’s superior power in the
marketplace. That would translate to lower
margins for OnePlus.
Brick-and-Mortar Electronics Retailers
One strategic choice was for OnePlus to create a 250 to 500
square foot store-within-a-store
that would have point-of-purchase display products and
accessories and merchandising material.
OnePlus could create similar mini stores at service provider
stores such as AT&T and Verizon.
The advantage of having a mini store in Best Buy would be that
the store-within-a-store model
was already established; Best Buy already had moved
strategically in this direction with Samsung
and Microsoft. Best Buy also offered the advantage of massive
distribution, with 1,400 stores in the
United States. The downside was that OnePlus likely would get
lost in the clutter of competing

39. stores and brands. Moreover, Best Buy would not be as
interested in OnePlus as a strategic partner
as it was with Samsung or Microsoft since OnePlus was a small,
relatively unknown startup.
Service Providers
Alternatively, OnePlus could opt to open mini stores within
larger AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile,
and Sprint stores. The four largest service providers together
had more than 10,000 retail stores,
which was almost six times the reach of Best Buy. Another
advantage was that service providers
were focused only on mobile phones, whereas people visited
Best Buy for many reasons, not just to
purchase a phone. Also, service providers were gaining share on
Best Buy. With the United States
being a provider-centric market, it made sense for OnePlus to
pursue distribution through service
provider stores, as well as through its website. The key
competitors in the smartphone market,
including Samsung, HTC, and LG, were all present in service
provider stores, so OnePlus would be
the odd man out if it did not seek a place in this channel. The
company was aware that Nokia had
failed in the U.S. market because it did not pursue distribution
through service providers.
The disadvantage of the service provider channel was that real
estate in carrier stores was
limited, and OnePlus might get only a wall display. Also, it was
not clear if OnePlus could have a
differentiated presence with several brands jostling for space
and attention. Here, too, OnePlus’s
bargaining power was limited, as it would be one of many
players. In addition, it would need

40. to incentivize sales personnel in stores to push OnePlus devices,
which would result in lower
margins.
Marketing Communication
OnePlus had a limited marketing budget, which meant it would
need to make marketing
communication investments very judiciously.
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Traditional Media
The first decision the company had to make was whether or not
to invest in traditional media.
One possible strategy in traditional media was out-of-home
billboards. OnePlus could use some
of its marketing budget on billboards in strategic locations in
major cities. The cost of renting a
standard billboard varied by city, ranging from $1,000 to $3,000
per month for a smaller city to
$5,000 to $10,000 for a larger city, and even higher ($11,000 to
$15,000) in cities such as Boston and

41. San Diego. The cost of a billboard in New York could be
anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 for four
weeks. A less-expensive option was a digital billboard that
could be shared by different businesses
and thus would cost less. In some cities, however, digital
billboards actually cost more than print
billboards. The billboard’s advantage was that it was a good
way to introduce a brand without
getting into too much detail. It also meant less clutter and a
more differentiated value proposition.
The slogan would also play well on a billboard (#NeverSettle).
The call to action would be “Learn
more at OnePlus.com.”
Another tactic for traditional media was to make targeted media
buys with online streaming
providers such as Hulu, YouTube, Crackle, and Comcast
Stream. OnePlus could partner with these
providers for ad placements by producing 15- or 30-second ads.
This tactic could be effective for
younger customers who spent a lot of time consuming video
content from streaming providers.
However, the team would need to choose ad buys carefully—
perhaps 20 to 40 of them, depending
on cost. Would this be enough to drive broad awareness?
OnePlus also could buy print advertising
in business publications such as the Wall Street Journal to reach
professional customers. Print media
had a wide reach and could reach older customers quite
effectively.
Online Media
OnePlus could build on its social media strategy by continuing
its guerrilla tactics but also by
augmenting earned media (exposure gained through word of

42. mouth) and owned media (such as
OnePlus’s website, company blog, and social media accounts)
with spending on paid media. This
last would include online display and search marketing to drive
traffic to OnePlus’s website. Sites
such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube offered
advertising options that could help
boost the company’s exposure. It would also mean continuing
with creative promotional tactics—
such as OnePlus-created documentary The Second Album,
which depicted the intense atmosphere
at the company offices in the weeks leading up to the One Plus
2’s launch—but using paid media
to drive traffic to these promotional films.27
The question before OnePlus was how much to allocate across
each of these categories. Should
it, like the average firm, devote about 30 percent of its budget
to online media, or did its target
segments mean that a higher percentage should be dedicated to
it? Allocating spend to traditional
media would mean reaching older, more traditional customer
segments whereas spending on
online media likely would reach younger consumers, who spend
a greater amount of time on
digital channels. The budget allocation would need to consider
the effectiveness of the various
media channels, as well as their costs. See Exhibit 11 for
indicative costs of online and offline media
buys.
27 Julian Chokkattu, “OnePlus’ Feel-Good Documentary Goes
Behind the Scenes of the OnePlus 2 Launch,” Digital Trends,
June 3, 2016.
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Conclusion
OnePlus wanted to avoid being a shooting star, burning brightly
one moment and crashing
spectacularly the next. The company had to figure out how to
become a sustainable multibillion-
dollar company while staying true to its early-adopter
customers. Lau believed he knew the recipe
for sustained success: spending more time and energy on
creating a better product should always
be OnePlus’s priority. He also believed firmly that the company
should stay true to its mission of
“Never Settle” and not be afraid to take risks in its effort to
remain a challenger.
Pei believed that although OnePlus was now in a position to
invest in advertising, it would
stay focused on building its community through word of mouth.
He was also very conscious of the
need to protect the OnePlus brand difference. “People liked you
because you were different and
an outsider,” noted Pei. “When you start to employ more of the
same strategies as the big guys,

44. why are you different? That’s something we’re trying to deal
with. In essence, we are trying to boil
down the few core reasons why people are attracted to our brand
and then amplify those reasons.
. . . I heard that LG is spending [around] $200 million a year
just in the U.S. on buying media. We
have nowhere near that; if we used the same strategies as the
big guys, we would drown.”28
The challenge for the company was to retain key aspects of the
culture and strategy that had
powered its early success while adapting other aspects of the
strategy to broaden its appeal beyond
its early customers. Making this transition successfully would
determine whether OnePlus would
be able to cross the chasm.
28 Jonathan Bacon, “How OnePlus Is Taking On the Mobile
Giants,” Marketing Week, March 2, 2016.
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K e l l O g g s c h O O l O f M a n a g e M e n t
Exhibit 1: Worldwide Sales of Smartphones to End Users

45. * Projected
Source: Statista 2016, IDC 2010-2015.
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K e l l O g g s c h O O l O f M a n a g e M e n t
Exhibit 2: OnePlus One
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Exhibit 3: OnePlus 2

46. For the exclusive use of z. XU, 2020.
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K e l l O g g s c h O O l O f M a n a g e M e n t
Exhibit 4: Smartphone Comparison
iPhone 6S Galaxy S6 Xiaomi OnePlus 2 OnePlus One
Weight 143 g 138 g 129 g 175 g 162 g
Storage 16GB, 64GB, 128GB 32GB, 64GB, 128GB 32GB,
64GB, 128GB 16GB, 64GB 16GB, 64GB
RAM Undisclosed 3GB 3GB 4GB 3GB
Screen size 5.5” 5.1” 5.2” 5.5” 5.5”
Resolution 1920 × 1080,
401 PPI
1440 × 2560 1920 × 1080,
428 PPI
1920 × 1080,
401 PPI

47. 1920 × 1080,
401 PPI
Camera 12 MP, LED flash 16 MP, 5 MP front 16 MP, dual LED
13 MP, dual LED
flash
13 MP, 5 MP front
Wi-fi 802.11ac 802.11ac 802.11ac 802.11ac 802.11ac
Processor Apple A9, 64-
bit, clock speed
undisclosed
2.1 GHz 8-core
Exynos 7420
1.8 GHz quad-core
Snapdragon 820
1.8 GHz 8-core
Snapdragon 810
2.5 GHz quad-core
Snapdragon 801
Battery
capacity
1,715 mAh 2,550 mAh 3,000 mAh 3,300 mAh 3,100 mAh
Price $849 $650 $355 $389 $249
Software iOS 9 Android Lollipop Android 6.0
Marshmallow

48. OxygenOS (Android
5.1)
CyanogenMod
(Android 4.4)
Source: Compiled by the authors.
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Exhibit 5: OnePlus X
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49. K e l l O g g s c h O O l O f M a n a g e M e n t
Exhibit 6: OnePlus Advertisement
Source: Ariel Rosenstein, “How the OnePlus’ Marketing
Strategy Made It the Most Desirable Phone in the World,” The
Next Web,
March 17, 2015, http://thenextweb.com/market-
intelligence/2015/03/17/how-oneplus-ones-marketing-made-it-
the-most-
desirable-phone-in-the-world.
Source: Deepali Sharma, “OnePlus 2 Gets Price Cut in India,”
Intellect Digest, March 15, 2016, http://www.intellectdigest.in/
oneplus-2-now-available-invite-free-in-india-20955.
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K e l l O g g s c h O O l O f M a n a g e M e n t
Exhibit 7: OnePlus Customer Behavior
40%
31%

50. 9% 7% 5% 3% 2% 1% 1% 0%
“How did you find out about
OnePlus?”
Other:
Tweakers.net
Reddit
Xda-developers
9gag
TWIT Podcast
50%
33%
6%
3%
3%
2%
2%
2%
I was impressed by the features
It has an attractive price

51. I liked the design
A friend shared an invite
I got an invite from OnePlus
Other
It was a gift for a friend
It was an impulse purchase
“What was the main reason you
purchased a OnePlus One?”
Source: OnePlus.
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K e l l O g g s c h O O l O f M a n a g e M e n t
Exhibit 8: Smartphone Customer Personas
Tech Enthusiast Design Enthusiast
Business
Professional Social Teenager Baby Boomer

52. Market size 15% 15% 30% 20% 20%
Demographics 25–39, mostly
male
25–39, mostly
female
28–50 13–17 50+, seniors
Motivations Influence others,
evangelize
Design, status,
aesthetics
Productivity,
e-mail, client
satisfaction
Entertainment,
social connections
Basic needs,
safety, connect
with family
Lifestyle Moderate income,
college education,
technical jobs,
tech producers
High income,
highly educated,
managerial jobs,

53. tech consumers
High income,
college education,
managerial and
executive jobs
Students, no
income, voracious
tech consumers
Retired or nearly
retired, high
school or college
education, news
consumers
Attitude toward
technology
Deeply technical,
35% follow tech
news
Not geeky but 22%
read tech news
Like to use it for
productivity
Fluent users of
technology, digital
natives
Aversion to
technology, digital

54. immigrants
Willingness to pay High Moderate to high Moderate Low
(parents
would pay)
Moderate to low
Media
consumption
habits
Facebook,
YouTube, Twitter,
Tumblr
Facebook,
Pinterest, Twitter,
LinkedIn
LinkedIn, Google+,
Facebook, Twitter
Snapchat,
Instagram,
Facebook, Twitter,
Vine
Facebook,
YouTube, Google+,
LinkedIn
Phone usage 95% own
smartphones,
favor Android
devices

55. Apple devices Android devices 70% own
smartphones,
prefer Apple and
Samsung
64% own
smartphones,
older boomers
prefer feature
phones
App usage (top 5) Meerkat,
Periscope, Uber,
Evernote, Buzzfeed
Facebook, Pandora
Radio, YouTube,
Instagram, Netflix
Evernote, Any.do,
Pulse, Dropbox,
TripIt
Instagram,
Snapchat,
Facebook, Kik,
Periscope
Facebook, Pandora
Radio, Yahoo Mail,
YouTube, Skype
Source: Compiled by the authors.
For the exclusive use of z. XU, 2020.

56. This document is authorized for use only by zhukun XU in
Marketing 3010 taught by Rita Schwisow, University of Utah
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Exhibit 9: Persona Profile: Amy, the Design Enthusiast
AGE: 32
OCCUPATION: Publishing Manager
STATUS: Single
LOCATION: Chicago, Illinois
ARCHETYPE: Runner and yoga lover
MOTIVATIONS:
Status
Style
Aesthetics
Visual appeal
Social

57. LIFESTYLE:
Drives a sporty BMW
Exercises regularly
Enjoys nights out with friends
Likes to try new cuisines
TECHNOLOGY GOALS:
Wants an intuitive, easy-to-use phone
Prefers a sleek device that has lots of visual appeal
Listens to the latest music hits
Stays connected with friends and family via text, e-mail, video
(FaceTime), and apps (Facebook)
Although she does not want to bring work home too often, she
wants to stay connected with colleagues and be productive on
the go
PERSONALITY: BRANDS:
EXTROVERT INTROVERT
THINKING FEELING
VISUAL NON-VISUAL

58. GEEK ENTHUSIAST
S O C I A L N E T W O R K S
BIO:
Amy works in the creative field and appreciates good design.
As such, she has been an iPhone devotee and considers it her
most precious possession. She uses her iPhone as her GPS
device, to listen to music, to take photographs and videos,
and to keep track of workouts. She also uses it to shop at
her favorite online stores and to connect with her family on
FaceTime as well as for apps that keep her up-to-date on her
social and professional networks.
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59. K e l l O g g s c h O O l O f M a n a g e M e n t
Exhibit 10: OnePlus Brand Personality
4.12
5.24
6.04
5.88
4.96
5.42
5.78
6.09
4.19
6.54
4.23
4.89
5
5.1
5.11
5.96

60. 6
6.02
6.1
6.11
1 4 7
Cheap brand
Transparent
Receptive to feedback
Customer-centric
Humble
Exciting
Making an impact
Innovation
Young
Quality Products
OnePlus
Smartphone brand
TOP 5
Our customers strongly agree
that OnePlus is making Quality

61. Products, and is Young,
Innovative, Making an Impact,
and Exciting.
BOTTOM 5
The respondents tend to agree
the least that OnePlus is Cheap,
Transparent, Receptive to
Feedback, Customer-Centric, and
Humble.
Source: OnePlus.
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Exhibit 11: Indicative Costs of Online and Offline Media Buys,
2015
TRADITIONAL (OFFLINE) MEDIA
30-second TV ad in prime time broadcast TV $112,000
Average cost of a commercial in AMC’s Walking Dead
$400,000

62. Average CPM for a 30-second commercial on broadcast prime
time $24.76
One-page full-color front page ad in the New York Times
$50,000
Average CPM of a newspaper $32
Cost of four weeks on Times Square’s biggest billboard (an 8-
story sign on
Broadway)
$2.5 million
30-second Super Bowl ad (2015) $5 million
ONLINE MEDIA
“Brand Story” ad on Snapchat $750,000
Average CPM of Facebook ad $0.25
Average CPM of LinkedIn ad $0.75
Average CPM of Google AdWords $2.75
YouTube pay-per-view $0.30–$0.10
CPM for standard in-stream video ad on Hulu $35
CPM of sponsored video on Instagram $30
CPM of sponsored photo on Instagram. Minimum ad spend is
$200,000 $20

63. Advertising on tech blogs such as TechCrunch (minimum
spend/month) $5,000
Source: Compiled by the authors.
For the exclusive use of z. XU, 2020.
This document is authorized for use only by zhukun XU in
Marketing 3010 taught by Rita Schwisow, University of Utah
from Jan 2020 to Jun 2020.